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To improve the likelihood of conservation success, donors, policy makers, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and researchers are increasingly interested in making conservation decisions based on scientific evidence. A major challenge in doing so has been the wide variability in the methodological rigor of existing studies. We present a simple framework to classify different types of conservation evidence, which can be used to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and biases in the conservation effectiveness literature. We then apply this framework to evaluate the evidence for the efficacy of four important strategies in tropical forest conservation. Even though there has been an increase in methodologically rigorous studies over time, countries that are globally important in terms of their biodiversity are still heavily under-represented by any type of conservation effectiveness evidence.

Conservationists often must take action in the face of uncertainty about the costs and benefits of different options. Although this uncertainty can be paralyzing when the stakes are high, there is obviously a cost to inaction as well as action, and decision makers need to be encouraged to act when appropriate. Many other fields of human endeavor such as law, medicine, and public safety have formally developed the “burden and standards of proof” that decision makers have to meet in choosing to take action. In this paper, we review the standards developed in these other fields to help define a similar framework for conservation. Specifically we propose that a conservation decision maker must assume the burden of proof when there is a decision to act that substantially affects others, in which the decision maker has professional standing, where there is not immediate urgency, and where there is some, but not complete certainty about the outcomes of acting versus not acting. Once these initial tests have been met, in situations in which the decision maker is more worried about the consequences of not acting, then a relatively low standard of proof is required for taking action. If the decision maker is concerned with the consequences of acting in error, but the action is relatively reversible, then a medium standard of proof is required. And finally, if there are concerns about the consequences of acting in error, but the action is relatively irreversible, then a high standard of proof is required.

If a project team is integrating human socio-economic development into its conservation work, there are three options for structuring the project: (1) have an integrated mix of conservation and development ends, (2) use development means in service of strict conservation ends, and (3) explicitly link the project’s conservation ends to broader development ends. Although Option #1 is the most common solution, in this essay I argue that careful articulation of the theories of change behind conservation strategies reveals that it is often the worst choice. Project teams ultimately have to select either conservation or development goals, or risk achieving neither, especially in cases in which there is minimal linkage between the goals. Instead, a far better choice is Option #2 under which conservation agencies and organizations use the resources allocated to them by society in service of strict conservation ends. Under this option, project teams cannot ignore development concerns. Instead, they need to consider human needs in the context of both the threats at the site and their strategies – to use development means to achieve their desired conservation ends. Finally, in situations in which conservation teams need to increase available resources, it may be useful to show how conservation ends can also be a means to help achieve broader development ends over the long-term. Under Option #3, creating a clear “results chain” showing the team’s theory of change enables teams to explicitly explore and make use of the links between human and natural welfare needs, and provide appropriate authorities with the information needed to weigh tradeoffs and make required decisions.

Although there has been increasing interest in trying to link the livelihoods of people living near natural resources to the conservation of those resources, there has been little attempt to systematically assess or measure this linkage. We develop a conceptual framework for defining the linkage between livelihood activities and conservation. We then develop a scale to assess the strength of linkage across five dimensions: species, habitat, spatial, temporal and conservation association. We test the framework and scale by evaluating 39 project sites in the Biodiversity Conservation Network. Finally, we discuss the relevance of linkage to designing appropriate conservation strategies.